Momentum Builds for Senator Markey’s Legislation to Protect Kids from AI Chatbots

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Washington (July 21, 2026) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, today announced new support for his Youth AI Privacy Act, legislation that would require artificial intelligence (AI) companies to implement privacy safeguards in their AI chatbots. Senator Markey introduced the legislation in March 2026.

In 2025, approximately two-thirds of teenagers reported using AI chatbots, and roughly a quarter reported using them daily. In a tragic case, a teenager died by suicide after encouragement or advice from an AI chatbot.

The following organizations are endorsing the Youth AI Privacy Act: Fairplay, Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Common Sense Media, Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Public Knowledge, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Becca Schmill Foundation, Issue One, Jewish Family and Children's Services, Jesuit Conference Office of Justice and Ecology, Mothers Against Media Addiction, (MAMA), The Tech Oversight Project, InnovateEDU, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), Transparency Coalition, The National Decency Coalition, All Girls Allowed, The Alliance for Secure AI.

"The new support for my Youth AI Privacy Act sends a clear message to Big Tech: stop exploiting kids through manipulative AI chatbots," said Senator Markey. "Parents, kids, and families across the country are rightfully demanding strong protections against AI chatbots. My Youth AI Privacy Act answers that call by prohibiting AI companies from using invasive and manipulative design tricks that exploit young people's emotions and foster dependency on AI chatbots. I look forward to working with my Senate Commerce Committee colleagues to advance this legislation."

"The Becca Schmill Foundation is proud to endorse Senator Markey's Youth AI Privacy Act. Children and teens deserve strong protections in the age of AI. At a time when young people continue to face growing risks to their privacy and safety, this legislation provides urgently needed safeguards and accountability. We applaud Senator Markey's leadership and urge Congress to pass the Youth AI Privacy Act to help ensure that young people's rights and well-being come first," said Deb Schmill, mother of Becca Schmill, forever 18, Founder of the Becca Schmill Foundation.

"AI technology without appropriate safeguards poses a major threat to our children's mental and physical well-being. We've seen far too many young people manipulated, traumatized, or even driven to self-harm or suicide by AI chatbots," said Julie Scelfo, Founder and Executive Director of Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA). "The Youth AI Privacy Act, which would require AI chatbot companies to incorporate strong privacy and safety features in their products before allowing kids to use them, is a major step in the right direction to keep our children safe online. MAMA members nationwide applaud Senator Markey's commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of America's children and families and urge the Senate to quickly pass this critical bill."

"Big Tech turned social media into a machine for harming kids, and now it's doing the same with AI chatbots: mining children's conversations for data to monetize, profiling their behavior, and designing features to keep them hooked. Senator Markey's bill draws a line in the sand: if you want to put a chatbot in front of a kid, you need to prove you built it safely first. Big Tech companies had every chance to build safe products on their own, but they chose profits instead. Kids have already died because AI products were rushed out without guardrails. Congress waited too long on social media - with the Youth AI Privacy Act, it has the chance to learn from that mistake. Acting now will save lives," said Sacha Haworth, Executive Director of The Tech Oversight Project.

"AI chatbots are designed to capture children's attention and profit from their most personal disclosures. Chatbots use manipulative features like push alerts and simulated companionship to keep kids engaged and their data flowing to advertisers and training pipelines. The Youth AI Privacy Act confronts those problems directly: it bars advertising aimed at minors, blocks the use of their data to train chatbot models, and eliminates the addictive design features engineered to maximize compulsive use. This bill takes the most durable path to protecting young people by targeting how these products are built and how children's data is used. It is the model the Senate should advance and build on," said Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI.

"As AI chatbots become a fixture in kids' everyday lives, we must protect their privacy with strong rules governing how their data is collected and used," said Amina Fazlullah, head of tech policy at the national non-profit Common Sense Media. "The Youth AI Privacy Act does just that. Our own research has identified troubling AI data manipulation features. For example, we found that AI systems' memory features can focus on the most concerning parts of a conversation - like disordered eating or self-harm - and raise them repeatedly. This keeps kids trapped in cycles of harmful thinking, while AI-enabled devices marketed to children collect voice recordings, transcripts, and behavioral data with little transparency about how they are used. This new bill is the strongest approach we've seen yet to protect minors' data from AI tools, by locking down how it can be collected, used, and monetized. It covers everything from banning targeted ads to prohibiting companies from training on kids' personal data. No single bill will solve every risk AI chatbots pose, but this bill offers a serious and substantive step toward putting real limits on the tech industry's pursuit of engagement at the cost of our kids' well-being. We urge Congress to move it forward."

"Artificial intelligence has incredible potential, but it should never come at the expense of young people's safety. Too many teens are turning to AI chatbots during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives, often without understanding how these systems are designed or how their personal information may be used. The Youth AI Privacy Act takes a common-sense approach by ensuring that companies put children's well-being ahead of engagement metrics and profit. As a young person who has struggled with suicidal ideation and as a mental health advocate, I'm proud to support legislation that recognizes innovation and youth protection must go hand in hand. Thank you to Senator Markey for putting this bill forward and prioritizing lives over profit," said Ayaan Moledina, Federal Policy Director for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT).

"For too long, technology companies have treated children's data as a product rather than recognizing it for what it is: highly sensitive information that deserves protection," said Kara Williams, Counsel at EPIC. "The Youth AI Privacy Act sets long-overdue limits on the collection, use, and transfer of minors' data and rejects business models that depend on profiling and exploiting young people. EPIC is proud to stand with Senator Markey and endorse this bill as an important step toward stronger privacy protections for children."

"With the Youth AI Privacy Act, Sen. Markey is meeting the moment and giving families legislation they badly need. Parents and caregivers deserve real accountability from chatbot companies, and this bill provides that through robust privacy and safety-by-design requirements. Fairplay thanks Sen. Markey for his leadership in taking on one of the biggest threats to young people's safety and well-being today, and we call on his colleagues in the Senate to advance the Youth AI Privacy Act with the urgency this issue demands," said Brendan Bouffard, Staff Attorney at Fairplay.

"The Youth AI Privacy Act is the right approach to protecting minor users of AI chatbots. Limiting how chatbots use children's data and safeguarding against manipulative design features address both what companies do with children's data and how they build products to exploit young users' attention - without resorting to invasive age verification or content restrictions that put free expression at risk. Public Knowledge welcomes the opportunity to work with Senator Markey on this bill," said Morgan Wilsmann, Policy Analyst at Public Knowledge.

"Pope Leo XIV recently wrote, 'Far-sighted public policies are needed to oppose the immediate interests of platforms, concentrated in a few hands, when they conflict with the wellbeing of minors' (Magnifica humanitas 142). The Youth AI Privacy Act will help keep our children safe by implementing such far-sighted policies that protect the privacy and mental health of our children. We hope that Congress will pass this common-sense bill as part of any child safety legislative package," said Fr. Chris Kellerman at SJ, Jesuit Conference Office of Justice and Ecology.

"Jewish Family and Children's Services in the San Franisco Bay Area is proud support the Youth AI Privacy Act and we commend Senator Markey for his leadership and commonsense approach to the issue. This bill focuses squarely on the harms to children shown in research and law to have occurred on social media, and prevents us from repeating them on AI platforms. By directly targeting data privacy as well as manipulative and addictive features, with annual research funding, the Youth AI Privacy Act addresses these harms at their root and ensures that we understand how they evolve in the AI age," said Jeff Weiner, Director of Public Policy at Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties.

Emerging evidence clearly suggests that minors are especially vulnerable to the harms of AI chatbots, particularly as companies introduce increasingly manipulative design features and rely on large amounts of children's personal data. The Youth AI Privacy Act would set new privacy standards for these systems, curb the business incentives that drive harmful design choices, and address the ways Big Tech has engineered chatbots to encourage compulsive use among young people.

The Youth AI Privacy Act would establish:

1. Safe Design Features

1. Privacy Safeguards

1. Enforcement: The Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and private plaintiffs are authorized to enforce the legislation.

Senator Markey continues to demand transparency from AI companies about their deployment of AI chatbots. In January, Senator Markey wrote to seven major tech companies-OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Snap Inc., and xAI-urging details on how the companies will protect their users from manipulation and exploitation if the companies plan to integrate advertising into their AI chatbots.

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